Time To Talk About Loneliness At Work

Since it launched, just four years ago, Time To Talk Day, which happens on the first Thursday in February, has inspired millions of people to open up about mental health. However, one area that remains very taboo is the impact that loneliness has on the mental health of employees. Far from just being a feeling, loneliness is worse for our health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It increases the risk of heart disease by 29% and the risk of stroke by 32% (Valtorta et al, 2016), reducing overall life expectancy by seven years (Holt-Lunstad et al, 2015). It’s now such a chronic problem across the UK that the government has appointed a minister for loneliness to help address the scale of the issue. But given that many people’s only source of interaction with other people is through work, employers also have a vital role to play in addressing the issue. Here are six steps you can take to get the conversation started and make loneliness at work a thing of the past…

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